writings – St GEORGIA & Boo

takings from T.S. Eliot’s, Little Gidding

chère douce Paris, je reviendrai un jour

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make and end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

For last words belong to last years language

And next years words await another voice.

But the passage now presents no hindrance

To the spirit unappeased and peregrine.

Between two worlds become much like each other.

So i find words i never thought to speak.

simple cooking and words

“As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or Who dwells within them, or how precious they are — those are things which we seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul’s beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond, and in the outer wall of the castle — that is to say, in these bodies of ours.”
― Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle

I’m moving to a slower rhythm, keeping things simple, deciding what can and can’t flow through my life right now. I’m sure, and unsure, being brave and honest with myself. I’m allowing, unresisting to any uncomfortable movements that are arising and just letting them be. I’m giving myself the grace to be with all it entails. This is the only way forward, this is the only way that the new story can be created from here. I must know all of my inner most ingredients, everything that makes me move the way i do. I’m spending much needed time, unraveling, dreaming, grieving, understanding and finding my way back, towards forgiveness and acceptance. I can see all the answers, i can see how wonderfully great it is going to be, i can see the picture i’m creating and the way it will look, but i know i can’t just arrive there, to this wonderful new place. i know that there’s no skipping ahead, not on this journey im on, not this time. Everything that comes up, needs to be moved through, nothing can be rolled up, or put to the side or saved for later.. for some other time. i have arrived in a place that i wont allow myself to travel back from, i am willing to do or not do, what ever it takes to arrive completely at home with myself, again.

lemon thyme tuna patties

ingredients: 4 potatoes, finely diced spanish onion, tuna, fresh sprigs of thyme, rind of 1 lemon, sea salt, cracked pepper, parsley, 5 slices stale bread, 1 free range egg, olive oil

method: in a food processor, combine bread, parsley pinch of salt and process into fine bread crumbs. Boil the potato’s whole with the skins on until cooked through and soft when pierced though the centre. Allow to cool slightly before peeling and disregarding the skins and mash with potato masher. Combine tuna with a little of the olive oil, onion, lemon rind, thyme, egg, with the potatoes. Stir mix through and season generously. Roll table spoonfuls into patties and coat in the bread crumbs , laying in a single layer on a tray and refrigerate for 1/2 an hour. Heat a non stick fry pan with olive oil and cook patties until a golden brown before gently turning to cook the other side. Serve with a light citrus salad, hot or cold.

Why i want a Wife

In August 1970, a woman named Judy Syfers stood before a crowd gathered in San Francisco and read a humorous essay she wrote entitled ” Why I want a Wife”. The crowd was gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. In 1971 it was published in an important anthology of feminist works, ‘Notes from the third Year’.

I belong to that classification of people known as wives.I am a wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.

Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?

I would like to go back to schools that I can become economically independent, support myself, and, if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I going to school, I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife to keep track of the children’s doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children’s clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure they have adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. it may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.

I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed,mended,replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying. i want a wife to go along when our family takes vacation so that someone can continue to care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scene.

I want a wife who will not bother me rambling complaints about a wife’s duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them.

If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free.

When i am through with school and have a job, i want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties.

My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?

when a daughter of my closest friend gave me this piece to read i did so lightheartedly thinking in the beginning how truthfully funny it was.. however the further i read, the humour was lost to how implicitly relevant this piece is to the women of today. How do we change the story? How do we teach our sons and daughters differently, to expect different and fairer for themselves when all they see are mothers taking care of them, taking care of all that needs to be done for their lives to feel secure and loved as children? How do i show my daughters that their lives are abundantly worth everything and that they need not lose themselves to the children they bear and the husbands they marry, when it is all they have ever witnessed and not by their mother’s choosing? This piece was written in 1970, it could have been written today, i could have written it, for myself.

sacred spaces sacred prayer

The figure symbolizes my spiritual nature or God life This means that a wonderful pose of life has been shown me The beautiful poise of life assumes a unique pattern as my love enshrined in a rhythm of spiritual beauty moves and sweeps through mountains deserts rocks water birds and animals Everything God created everywhere at one time This my life has wholeness of meaning because of my inner most experience I have come face to face with those – beautiful life principles Jesus spoke of and which are

The light of the world, William Ricketts 1898-1993

Being

When your deeper sense of self is derived from Being, when you are free from the psychological need, neither your happiness nor your sense of self depends on the outcome, and so there is freedom from fear. You don’t seek permanency where it cannot be found: in the world of form, of gain and loss, birth and death. You don’t demand that the situations, conditions, places or people should make you happy, and then suffer when they don’t live up to your expectations.

Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die, yet you are aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know that”nothing real can be threatened.”

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

I can see now that in small ways I have always been on this journey, the one towards truth, life, the essence of what Is. I have at times paused, challenged, denied, become lost, held great doubt, regathered, left and come back many times to this path, i now find myself back on. Maybe it is that i am only now really ready. That i have searched long enough and i have finally come to the understanding that the truth of what i am seeking is not out there at all. I am beginning to understand the depths to which our intricate beings travel, far beyond this thought or that, far beyond this world and that world. We are so very lost, within our minds, within the stories that we hold with so much faith and so much pain, and really they are only just stories. We are not our minds, we are not the stories we shape our lives with. We are so very much more than that. On some level I have always deeply understood this to be true, maybe that is why i have never been able to just settle into anything. And i have always been able to walk away in the end and continue the search, for what truly matters. I understand that really there are no endings, we are just all in some way trying to find our way back towards understanding the vast depths within ourselves and was it is exactly we are meant to know.

…she was able to ware proudly her passion for life, instead of her heart on her sleeve. She knew to hold herself back because she valued herself. she knew her price-priceless. She knew that the kind of love she gave was only going to go to somebody worthy of it. When your young your self-worth comes from being loved by other people; but by the time you are a woman with a past, you know your value, and you love yourself. That’s where your self-worth comes from. No man can ever give you your self-worth, but you can let plenty rob you of it. On the surface it would seem she is self-centered, which she is. But self-centered in the best possible way; being centered in the truth of who she is. Her authentic self. A woman who knows this deserves nothing less than to be loved truly madly deeply. Unconditionally. Devotedly. Exclusively. A woman who will not settle for anything less. Because that is the only way she knows how to love.

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

I have been confused and troubled by love for my life. I know i have wanted to believe that love is something only another can give to you, like a precious gift perfectly wrapped, a gift that would always remain the same, unable to be moved by life and harsh circumstances. I always wanted to believe that it is possible for another to give you the things that you were missing from your own beliefs, that they may just be able to fill the gaps, build you up, see your potential, even if you really couldn’t see or believe these things for yourself. I wanted to believe it to be this way, because i thought it was easier. There is no need for me to do anything. No need for me to do the hard work of discovering it for myself, within myself, by myself. It’s easier to accept and embrace the precious gift from another. What i have learnt, is that this rarely works. The very things we are looking for outside of ourselves, for love to provide us with, can never be found out there. It will never really exist there, unless of course, it already exists within you. It’s always nice in the beginning, your love see’s you the way you want to see yourself, you fall in love with the idea they have of you. It’s always a nice idea but it can never be a lasting idea because you don’t for a second believe it to be true for yourself. And that is the only place where love can begin. What i know now is, love doesn’t ask that we change or bend ourselves, it’s doesn’t require us to hide or manipulate truths about who we really are, or ask that we deny any part of ourselves that don’t seem to fit. Love requires nothing, it just is. It doesn’t need to be built up, explained or begged for, it doesn’t even need recognition or admiration, love just simply exists and i understand now, that i must be all that i am seeking, i must journey within and discover that great love for myself, by myself, only then will i truly be able to share it with another.

she says, ‘I just keep trying to walk through my karma with as much grace as possible. She believes that before we live our earthly lives, we choose our lessons. For her, our karma is really our decision once we’re here, whether we will or will not honour our souls journey to authenticity.’

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

Pealing back the layers is hard. Its confronting and messy. There comes a time when it becomes necessary, if what we are really wanting is to be more complete within ourselves. It’ s a time when no matter how much you want to blame the other, for all the heartaches that have transpired, you understand that blame really serves no purpose, it keeps you living within the pain, it keeps all that you were wanting to escape from, present. It stops you from healing. And healing is what you need. It takes immense courage to see and understand that all the injustices, betrayals of trust, acts of unworthy behaviour towards you, were really acts of grace. What if the other is always only reinforcing what we honestly believe to be true about ourselves and you realise that the only person that really brought you to this place is yourself? If you truly love and believe in yourself would you honesty accept anything lesser from another for yourself? The truth is, we are only ever receiving what we believe we deserve and it is not until we realise that we deserve better that we are able to make the necessary changes that will bring about better for ourselves. We may even, one day be thankful.

begin again.

im reading Something More at the moment, a book that has travelled many years beside me, it was at one time in my life well read and again now. As im reading im finding the stories are familiar, and i say with immense heartache are just as familiar once again. Sarah writes, ‘if it’s true that sometimes we marry for the wrong reasons, we convince ourselves to stay for even worse ones. We stay to be kind. We stay for the kids. We stay because we think we can’t afford to leave and wont calculate the psychic cost of remaining. We stay because we put loyalty to others above loyalty to our own truth. We stay because we are genuinely good and decent people. Good people do not walk out on marriages that are congenial enough to get through a dinner party, school conferences, a childs learning disability, a father-in-laws stroke, family holiday gatherings…’ Some women can do this and they seem to do it well, on the outside. They go about their lives, allowing themselves to slip away and they settle, settle for what they have, for what ever nourishment is offered if any is offered at all, they talk themselves into the belief that what they have is enough, that they can make do, they are even grateful, it might not be the complete story, but its a story and its good enough.. I’m not one of them. I have always wanted my children to live in their truth, what ever that entails, even if they are to find themselves lost in their lives over and over again, even if my children have children, be brave and follow your truth. They were my words and up until now, had only been for them. Until now, they have mattered more. All the ones i love have mattered more. I love well, somewhere and sometime ago, i stopped loving well the one who i needed the most, i stopped mattering to myself. Now, im listening to the honest words iv’e always held out for my children and offering them up for my own taking. I’m moving into my truth. i know it will come with resistance from others, even ones i love, that is alright. i understand that they don’t recognise me this way. It will take time to adjust, for understanding that now i am as important as they are, that now i may not always abide by the rules they have set for me. And some wont come around at all, it simply will no longer fit, maybe it will be too confronting for them, of their own stories, but that too cannot concern me now. i can let go with love the ones who are not meant to stay. What matters most now, in this moment is that I matter.

takings from.. Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life

takings from.. Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life.

takings from.. Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life

“I spotted a hut in the middle of a field, near the Château de Rosay, its windows glinting in the sun, and the word café painted in giant letters on the roof. I went in for a drink, and asked the proprietor if he had rooms to let . He offered me a little cottage some fifty yards off, with a thatched roof on which iris was in bloom. The following week I spent five days there. There were red tiles on the floor of my room, and i slept in a farmhouse bed under a plumped-out blue eiderdown: at five in the morning I awoke to the sound of cocks crowing. Eyes still shut, I let myself drift between sleeping and waking, between mornings long past and the light now welling up behind my shutters. When i opened the cottage door, there was green grass, and trees all in blossom. I would go and have coffee, and put a table up under an apple tree, and become once more that little girl doing her holiday task under the catalpa tree at Meyrignac. It was to her that i was now offering what, in various forms, she had so often dreamed of: a little house to herself. ”

-Simone be Beauvoir, The Prime of Life

a letter to a teacher

Dear…

I am sending you this in response to a conversation you had with a student, my daughter, a few weeks ago prior to the end of term.Firstly I wish to express that by writing this letter, by no means am I wanting this to cause any disturbance or ill feelings with in the teaching and school environment, my intention here is simply to inform you of a different perspective on a simple conversation for your further consideration.

The conversation in question proceeded with you asking my daughter if she knew what it was she wanted to do with her life after secondary school, or if she had an idea of what it is she could see herself doing with her future.

Undoubtedly, this is a relevant and important question that these young adults need to begin thinking about. It is a question of such significance that often it is asked over and over again many times though out a single life time.

My daughter, has indeed considered this question in great depths over the past few years, it is a conversation that naturally occurs quite regularly in our family around the dinner table. My daughter is insightful and clear about what it is that simply makes her happy and what it is that does not. She has an understanding about the things in life that drive her to want to know more, learn more about, take action on, become a voice for. She is passionate in life and understandings about the things that Really matter. Her strongest and most obvious caliber is her ability to create; her visual mind is of extraordinary magnitude.

When she answered this question for you, she gave you her absolute truth.She gave you a lovely list of things she ‘could see’, and I emphasize here, ‘see’ herself doing with her future. Her list I imagine would have consisted of many creative ideas and inventiveness. I understand that from an academic point of view this may not seem like a viable way to pave for ones future, that these choices that are being considered may or may not lead to what society deems a suitable or economically sustainable way of living. Your responses however, whether it be what you actually believe, or a moment of unconscious thought, to my daughter’s ideas about her life’s future were quite disheartening and surprising to say the least. You proceed to inform her that her ideas she was considering were merely just that of ‘hobbies’ and that they were not a means for ‘making a living’. I don’t wish to quote here on the exact way in which the conversation took place, however what does matter is the understanding of which my daughter walked away with from the experience.

You have in your judgments of what is considered to be a viable future and what is not, bought her to a place at a vital young age to question herself about her abilities to offer something of value and insight to the world in which we live.

Now, my question to you is this, if we are not to guide these young minds to follow their dreams, to pursue their passions and the very things that are the driving force behind what makes them who they are as individuals, and instead lead them to follow the ideas and beliefs of another on the advice that it is a better way, or the only sustainable way; are we not creating a society of individuals who need to perform rather than live and rather than acceptance of who they are, conditioning them into an idea of what they should be?

I beg you to consider this, if we are to follow the essence of who we are, and are fortunate enough to be able to offer a valuable truth of ourselves to the world and the people in which inhibit this world, are we not in essence creating a better place for ourselves and those around us to live. Where would we be with out the creative writers who offer their poetry for you to teach, where would we be without the painters who have embellished this planet with extraordinary pieces that are admired and past down through the tests of time, and the person who sat with pencil in hand and drew the outline of the satchel you carry your important papers in, and the books that are written, the gardens you stroll through, the glorious meals created from ingredients before they find themselves into the recipe books you cook from.

There are millions of ways to walk this life, my daughter is blessed enough that she falls into many, many ideas in which she will pave her way, all of which I’m certain will have a creative flare. And when I think of that prospect for her, I am unconcerned with the amount of money she will make, or even the details in how it will happen. For now, all that is important is that she believes in herself.

You hold an important and highly valued role within the school community, and have always been highly regarded in your opinion towards particular subjects with my children. It must be recognized that your view does impact the ways in which we move these young minds towards their futures. That you are in fact, in a position of great significance by educating and shaping these minds with ideas about themselves and the choices they will need to make.

Another student at the school, recently showed me a thought provoking piece by Alan Watts, titled ‘What if money was no object’ that is quite similar to that of which I have expressed here, if you are yet to see this piece, you may find it of interesting listening.

Kind Regards,

Carly Macaulay

she is..

She is the masters finishing touch. Eve is the crown of the creation, Not an after thought. She is Gods final touch, his pièce de résistance. She fills a place in this world nothing and no one else can fill. Look out across the earth and say to yourself.. The whole vast world is incomplete without me.

.. this is what it is like to be with a woman at rest, a woman comfortable in her feminine beauty. She is enjoyable to be with. She is lovely in her presence. Your heart stops holding its breath. You relax and believe once again that all will be well.

-John and Stasi Eldredge, Captivating

hitting the ground

Even though she might.. hit bottom via famine, capture, injured instinct, destructive choices and all of the rest, remember at the bottom is where the living roots of psyche are. It is there that a womans wild underpinnings are. At bottom is the best soil to sow and grow something new again. In that sence, hitting bottom, while extremely painful, is also the sowing ground.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Instinct is a difficult one to define, for its configurations are invisible and though we sence they have been part of human nature since the begining of time; no one knows quite where they might be housed neurologically or precicly how they act upon us.

Without warning, sometimes life just calls for us to hit the ground. To do nothing except be with whatever it is that has called us there. Most of the time for women this fall is unexpected and abruptly interferes with the routines we have created and the taking care of the children. We are, all at once forced to pay attention to ourselves and see what it is that has sent us suddenly plummeting. I have always thought myself to be in-touch with this inner knowing, wisdom of my own truth, I know now, that this too can get entangled and in a way lost within our all too busy and full lives. If we allow ourselves to wander too far astray from this unique and mysterious magic within ourselves by being too compliant, too good, too accommodating, too obliging, trying to bend and shape ourselves into something that clearly doesn’t fit, we are in danger of losing touch with our deepest intuition. “Instead of living freely, she begins to live falsely.’ Our intuitive nature gives us the ability to know our own truth, to see the unseen, to feel the truth of something before it is presented to us. ‘…to strip away her intuitive nature, her natural curiosity.. (which) leads her to discover “what lies underneath” and beyond the obvious,’ is devastating to the soul of the woman. Women have a way of losing themselves so to speak, in the raising of the children, in the taking care of others, the house, their husbands, their jobs, always serving themselves last. She drinks the cold cup of tea, allows all she loves and sometimes doesn’t to walk before her, that’s just what we do, we save ourselves for later. We do this because we love and care deeply. We see the ones around us so clearly that we make way, allow them to step first in their lives. If women do this without balance, without coming from a place of their soul truth, they are in danger of finding themselves lost within a world that isn’t entirely theirs, one where the windows of life that have a way of opening as we move forward on our paths, suddenly are closed. By not being completely true with ourselves we are out of alignment with this Life force. The Life force that resides within us. As women it is vital that every spoon we feed into the mouths of our babies, we first spoon into ourselves. At times throughout our lives it becomes necessary to dispose of the old clothes, the ones ‘which have become slackened from the wearing. The clothes are like us, worn and worn until our ideas and values are slackened by the passing of time.’ in the doing for others and not paying attention to our own inner desires closely enough. This is when we hit the ground, this is where the renewal, the revivifying, takes place.. in the re-discovering of what we really hold to be true, what we really hold sacred.

For many women, this task requires that they clear a time each day for contemplation, for a space to live in that is clearly their own with paper, pens, paints,tools, conversations, time, freedoms that are for this work only. Each woman has her own preferences, her own way.

the woman within

the woman within.

the woman within

I had two watershed experiences when I was in my early twenties, experiences that went against everything I had been taught about my body up to then. While at a women’s weeklong gathering and at night at the fire near the hot springs, I saw a naked woman of about thirty-five; her breasts were emptied out by childbearing her belly strained from birthing children. I was very young and I remember feeling sorry for the assaults on her fair and thin skin.

Some one was playing.. and she began to dance, her hair, her breasts, her skin, her limbs all moving in different directions. How beautiful she was, how vital. Her grace was heartbreaking. … that night I saw it. I saw what I had been taught to ignore, the power of a womans body when it is animated from the inside.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

begin here, with your daughters and sons, mothers fight the ever-growing war against this illusion of sculpting our bodies as though we were not born perfectly into this world. Teach your daughters to love themselves from the inside out. Teach your sons that we are perfect in all our flaws, that really the flaws are an illusion in its self. That our bodies are going to grow and change as we do, that never throughout our lives will we stay the same nor should we feel we have to. It is in our child baring years that we feel this most. It is in these years that loving ourselves and the body we wear needs our greatest admiration, for how perfectly they are able to stretch and define themselves around new life, sometimes leaving us with deep blue and purple scars that remain as reminders of how we once carried another within ourselves. Let us rid ourselves of this belief that we are meant to conceptually fit some unattainable idea of ourselves, before and after we carry our children. Let us change the minds of our teenage daughters and ease them of the heavy burdens they believe their bodies to be. Let us teach our sons to look deeper, that the real beauty of a woman lies deep within her layers, that they will never find what they are looking for if they are only ever to look at her from the outside.